Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 04:50:41 -0800 (PST) From: The Paternal Watcher Subject: My Junior High 2 I soon found myself sitting with other boys during lunch, boys who weren't so tough and didn't talk about their sexual conquests. Instead, we talked about our passion . . . Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, I had decided on a course that would make me a nerd in school, but at least I understood the vocabulary. I did have other interests which I did not share with my D&D buddies, such as Boy Scouts, and the first few months of seventh grade were a tornado of new experiences. D&D was the activity most likely to endanger my homework completion rate: huge numbers of us got together weekly for club meetings and games at the public library, four of us had our own regular game at Harold's house (because he had the best snacks), and there were endless hours of reading the voluminous rule books and creating characters, alone and in pairs. Among my school friends, Harold was the one I was becoming closest to. We'd been in elementary school together until the fourth grade, when his somewhat well-to-do parents took him out for some kind of private school experience, so it was easy to get reacquainted. Our passion for D&D meant that I frequently took his bus home from school. There at his house, I got to see all his wonderful things . . . an Atari 400 was the crown jewel of Harold's empire. Plus, his divorced mother, who was not there in the afternoons, always stocked the kitchen well with snacks. He was always Harold, never Harry, and he was, like about half of my friends, Jewish. What I knew this meant was twofold: there was something called a Bar Mitzvah coming when he turned 13, and he was certainly circumcised. The idea of circumcision had been mentioned in that volume of books I had used to educate myself about all things anatomical, and it didn't make sense to me. I knew that I was also circumcised, despite not being Jewish, and according to the book this was the state of most men and boys in the world. There were no illustrations, and careful study of my penis did not suggest to me what a foreskin looked like, nor where it would have been attached. I liked my penis just fine as it was, so I was not at all troubled by the mystery. Studying my penis was something I continued to do daily, although I spent more time reading my role-playing books, and even more time hanging out with Harold. My pubic hair had started coming in, so I knew that puberty was certainly upon me. As it grew past the peach fuzz stage, I was surprised to discover that it was darker than what I had on top. It was only a small tuft above my parts, and it wasn't as distressing as I had feared. Although I had read about hormones and changes, I wasn't aware of how they were beginning to affect my mind. In our little group of four D&D players, Harold and I and Steve and Chris, the stories and characters were played were changing. Yes, they were all heroic and grand and powerful and did good deeds, but they also started having sex. Well, we didn't actually role-play our characters having sex, but we certainly talked about it. Harold and I went further than our friends in this: my noble paladin, I decided, was the son of a god; his father was the god of horniness. I wasn't even aware that these ideas were proof that I was experiencing those feelings myself. We all knew that such things didn't belong in public conversation; other than Chris and Steve, we mentioned sex to no one, even the other D&D players. I still remembered the feelings of fear and ignorance from the beginning of the school year, and I was not about to say or do something which would lead to my lifelong humiliation. I had started sleeping over Harold's house some weekends, which was grand fun. Not only was there D&D and a huge variety of 8-bit games like Tank and Adventure on the Atari 400, he lived right next to a park so there was plenty of space to run around. His mom wasn't ever around even on the weekends, and she wasn't the type to tell us to go outside and play, but we did sometimes anyway. Harold was a boy who had a lot of pent-up energy, and would switch gears from intense reading to intense play with very little warning. When we wrestled on his bed (a full-sized bed, so much larger than the twin I had at home, more space than I could ever imagine needing for sleeping), he was prone to screaming out barbarian battle-cries in his voice, which was only just beginning to crack. We would always wrestle on the bed, because it was soft and our fighting was hard. We were all elbows and knees and bony hips grinding upon each other as we sought a pin, but pinning was never the clear victory. We would wrestle until we tired of it, and then we would get a snack. His bed was large, but I always slept at the foot of it, on the thick shag carpet with blankets and pillows aplenty. His mother did not make us breakfast in the mornings that I awoke there, if she was there at all. I certainly met her, and spoke with her, but either she worked long hours, or had a gentleman friend, or otherwise was rarely at home when I visited. I occasionally met Harold's only brother, who was two years older than he, but for the most part our time in his house was unfettered by other humans. During one Saturday visit Harold had a strong desire for outdoor activity, but we stayed near his house, running about and hiding and attacking one another. Perhaps it was sadism, but he grabbed the hose and threatened to turn it on me. We wrestled with it, and during our struggle we both got wet before we bored of that adventure. Then, he turned to me. "I dare you to stick the hose down your pants and turn it on full force," he said, a wicked gleam in his eye. Briefly I considered how cold water affected my genitalia, but I knew I had to accept. "I will if you will," I replied cautiously. He jammed the spigot into his jeans and, with a grin, turned it on. "Yiiiiii!" he cried, his eyes popping out from the cold. He quickly let go and pulled it out, handing it to me. "Your turn," he said. I took the proffered hose from him, and did not hesitate to duplicate the performance. Sweet mother of God, that was cold! Laughing, he hung the hose back up and led me through the garage into the laundry room. "Let's put our clothes in the dryer," he said. "I'll get us towels." Following his example, I slipped out of my soggy sneakers, peeled off my wet socks and t-shirt, and tossed them in the dryer. Harold handed me a towel, and wrapped another about his waist before sliding down his jeans . . . and his underpants. Well, it made sense, I reasoned . . . we were soaked to the skin. I did the same. "Okay, we have to dry the towels too, so here's what we have to do," he said. "When I count to three, we're both going to throw our towels into the dryer, I'll start it up, and we'll run upstairs to my room to get dry clothes." I blinked. He wanted me to run through his house NAKED?